Quality of Life in Sydney, Australia

Sydney is quite convenient because of network of metro train and the train stations are very close to malls and shopping area of the suburbs.Suburbs are self contained such that you can get all amenities in the suburb itself.
Sydney CBD is very nice and beautiful with parks and many food options.
Nightlife is quite bad.maybe because of the gay culture..lot happens underground and lot of large drug busts happening regularly.
Weather is great and many nationalities can be seen.some suburbs are full of certain nationality..but not much of problems.
It is a pleasant place and generally lifes good

Some of my family live in Sydney, and we go there almost every year. It's always sunny and warm and the beaches are beautiful. My family members are always going out with friends and having a great time. I'm not sure what part of Sydney you guys have been too but where I go everyone is always friendly and kind and it is a great place to be.

As someone from Europe don't expect Sydney to have what European cities have, deep culture. It just isn't there. They have some lovely beaches and the centre around the harbour bridge and "the rocks" area is nice but outside of the city centre are quite dull, boring and pretty soulless suburbs. Just houses and more houses with nowhere to go. I keep asking people what they do in the evenings and all they say is "stay home and drink". I'm so desperate to leave. Traffic and the amount of cars on the road (not to mention the driving) is pretty awful and dangerous. And i'm so freaked out at how people all stare at their mobile phones in a robotic way. I've never seen so many school kids all staring at their mobile phones while sitting next to each other, so sad. It's Christmas and there are almost no Christmas decorations around, just no atmosphere making it feel special. I could go on...

To balance it out i'll try and mention some positives...food in the cafes is generally good standard though can be expensive. The beaches are lovely although as I said getting to them through the traffic is not fun at all. All in all, I would prefer a smaller sized city in Australia like Perth (yes I said Perth) or Adelaide but realistically Australia feels like living at the end of the word and isn't well enough connected which again you really feel when talking to the people. Their lives seem to completely revolve around family because there is literally nothing else.

I grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney (Westmead) way back in the 70s, got out in the mid 80s and have only been back as a tourist in the years since. Its a great city for tourists who want to see all the icons - the harbour is genuinely brilliant on a nice day - but I suspect that many Sydneysiders are 'just getting by' from one month to the next. Unless you are taking home more than 200K (AUD) a year, life is unlikely to match the tourist brochures. 200K is not an unreasonable figure for many couples working in Sydney, but well in excess of what many are forced to live on - its one of those cities where you can be earning a hundred K and still struggle to get a home loan. Average salaries in Sydney and Melbourne are considerably higher than the rest of the country, but so are rents. Everything else - crime, homelessness, mental illness - has skyrocketed in the last 20 years but on balance I still prefer Sydney over Melbourne as a tourist destination (I'd reverse that recommendation for foodies, nightlife addicts and culture vultures).

In terms of warnings, I dont think its a good idea for women to walk alone in any of our cities at night - some will say that's just media hysteria, but we have an appalling record of drunken violence (against both sexes). We didnt have to contend with ice or roid rage in the 70s but I expect that wont be news to any resident of a big city virtually anywhere in the world. Be safe.

I still think its a great destination for 3-7 days, but we need to somehow reverse the tide of people who choose to live in one of our three biggest cities while the regional towns suffer. Hope this helps.